Widows
by cagd
Summary: Faith encounters Spike two years after the Fall of Sunnydale.


"...I'm standing on a mound of rubble of a life that used to be. I was holding on, now I'm letting go." 

-K.D. _What is a Butterfly?_

"**Hey"**

He came up behind you in line at the little mom n' pop all night corner store when you were paying for a fountain drink after you'd disposed of the A'loou-kak demon that had been preying on the homeless in your neighborhood.

_Spike._

_Of all people._

_Man._

_Whoa._

_Never thought I'd see..._

So when he set a six-pack of Guinness longnecks and a bag of ice on the counter while asking for a carton of unfiltered Camels from the turbaned Sikh on register one as you paid the identically turbaned Sikh on register two for your graveyard (You know, Coke, 7-UP, Orange Crush and Mountain Dew?) you said, "Hey." And he sort of looked over and said, "Hey." right back at you and paid, _actually paid_ for his smokes.

You finished paying for your own shit and waited for him at the front door, by the racks of real estate listings and independent newspapers.

It was 2 a.m. and raining.

**Job**

Spike was a little worse for wear, even had what looked like two weeks worth of beard; which was shockingly dark against his pale skin in the cheap, greenish fluorescent lighting of the store.

He limped. A little.

Hell, so did you. It wasn't the demon that did it; it was slipping on a wet manhole cover in that alley when you charged. Wham-bam, down you went on your right knee and then your left, skidding so that you peeled off big ol' chunks o' skin right through your new jeans without even tearing the cloth just as the thing was on top of you all glowing eyes, bad breath and smelly feet.

_Don't see what the homeless were bitching about. All it took was one good whack to the back of the head with a leaded bat! They could'a ganged up on that motherfucker and flattened it easy. Guess the thing's weird-o screaming and snarling had 'em freaked out. _

So you did it for them because it's your job; then you tossed the carcass and the broken bat into a dumpster, doused both with lighter fluid, popped your lighter and hey, five by five, toast!

Followed by a graveyard.

And Spike.

**Dead Letters**

You'd heard Spike was dead, you know, after all that shit in L.A. came down when Angel upset the applecart? Angel'd sent a letter to Buff - she shitcanned it unopened like all the others so you'd fished it out of the trash back in Rome when you were staying with her and Dawn and learned the skinny.

_Holy crap! _

Angel'd fallen for another con, just like he'd fallen for the one Wolfram and Hart offered him on a silver platter - and took a whole lotta cool people down with him.

And you?

Shit man! You'd trusted Angel to be there when you needed him. Not needed, but _needed_.

Like, you know, when Robin died of lymphoma after he'd agreed to be your Watcher? He'd survived the Hellmouth, but that fuckin' cancer ate him alive - had been the whole time; only he hadn't noticed until it was too late and the doctors discovered it when they were putting him back together after the big one ate Sunny-D.

_Shit._

_Shit._

_Shit._

And you'd...

(Loved him.)

Thanks to Angel skippin' out on you, all you had was Buffy. Too bad her royal B-ness was too busy screwin' that skanky Immortal guy to do more than to show up late to the funeral. Dawnie wasn't any help either - real death made her fall apart. Andrew twat? Fuckin worse! Giles? G-man - was away. By the time he got to Rome, you'd gone to earth, back home, Boston, and taken up a solitary assignment in the neighborhood you'd grown up in one million years ago B(efore) S(layerdom).

_Thanks Angel. Thanks a fuckin' lot. Thanks a... No, don't have time for that; don't have time for cryin'. Hey, my only mistake was in getting attached. When you get attached, they hurt you. Robin hurt me big time. He crapped out. He died._

So, here's Spike, a little worse for wear, big as life, no _death_, standing next to you as the late October rain patters down on the plastic awning at two-ish in the morning in a not-so-desirable section of Ye Olde Towne O' Boston.

**Graveyard**

Buffy's old bicycle let you go out the sliding doors first. Now you're leaning on your elbows against the vandalized newspaper machine, "So," you say casually as you sip at your graveyard, "Thought you bought the farm. Again."

"Nearly did, pet." Spike stands there, looking at you warily with one arm full of groceries and lights up with his free hand. His face is stained orange and blue from the neon "Open" sign in the window as he offers you a smoke from his pack. "Nearly did."

You accept and Spike lets you light up from his. "Seen... Buffy?" He asks casually.

You ease yourself up onto the newspaper machine to spare your knees, which are now oozing and throbbing like a bitch in heat beneath the concealing denim.

"Nope." Graveyard forgotten, you take a deep drag, savoring the next to last of your remaining vices. After Robin died, you'd been hitting the sauce pretty hard until one day you woke up head down in the crapper and realized that you were turning into your mother and quit, cold turkey. "Haven't seen B for over a year." You say as you tip your head back against the chilly steel bars that protect the plate glass window of the store, thin blue smoke curling out of your mouth and nose in the cool, damp air coming off Boston Harbor.

"Knew you'd say that, pet." He shifts the groceries.

"Just in town?"

"Yeah." Spike pauses and then shoves his old-fashioned steel lighter, the one that matches yours, into his hip pocket. His knuckles are covered with fading scars that glisten in the neon, "Hit city limits an hour ago."

"Well, hey, welcome to Bean Town." You take another drag, "Gotta place to flop?"

"That an invitation, pet?" Something flashes through his eyes, something... wary.

You've never seen _that_ before.

"Yeah." You flick ashes to the sidewalk, "Gotta place 'round the corner, small."

Small? Hell! You own the building, no the whole fuckin' neighborhood now, thanks to a way bad run-in with Kennedy you had three months ago that forced you to call Robin's lawyer just like he told you to if there was any trouble you couldn't punch your way out of. That's when you found out that Robin left all his assets, including his trust fund, to you. After the legal shit was sorted out, you used some of the money to buy the building that you'd been renting a one-room studio apartment in on the piss-piddle stipend the new Watcher's Council sends you every month.

_I'd like to see skinnyass richbitch's old man try to evict me now! I have my own pet lawyer!_

Anyway, you still live in the one-roomer, it's easier that way. Everything else is Robin's, no _your_ lawyer's problem: finding tenants, making repairs, and seeing to it that all the taxes 'n shit get paid up. "Or do you already have a bridge all picked out to sack under for the day?"

You look at Spike.

Spike looks at you.

Then both of you laugh, just a little.

"Sure you got room, pet?"

"I can always chuck the coffee table out the back window. Never liked that thing anyway; came with the place."

**Chicken**

Spike turns his attention to a beat up old Harley parked in the middle of the sidewalk right in front of the store door and starts shoving shit into the saddle bags. There's a sleeping bag strapped to the back of the seat; the whole thing looks like it skidded sideways across the pavement not too long ago.

"Playin' chicken with semis?" you venture in between puffs. Your knees are now beginning to throb harder. You shouldn't have climbed up onto the newspaper machine, 'cause gettin' off is gonna be bad.

Spike sorta looks over his shoulder at you, "Hit a patch of black ice three nights ago outside Cincinnati. Left half of me on the pavement." He pulls a small cooler out of one saddlebag, opens the lid and pours the melt water into the overflowing gutter. Dark packets, blood bags, give off a dull shine in the streetlights before he packs fresh ice around them. "No big deal." He pauses to light another smoke from his old one, lights a second, and passes it up to you.

He's not wearing the duster you last saw him in, just some short, brown non-descript leather jacket with the collar turned up over his jeans and boots. He could be anybody. Almost.

Something tells you that he wants it that way in the same way you that you want it for yourself. After Robin died, you cut your hair short, telling yourself that you were tired of getting it yanked in fights.

_No, I was tired of looking into the mirror and seeing me looking back._

It's been over a year now; you've been debating if you want to let it grow back out because you're sick of all those natural ringlets kinking up every time it rains, making you look like Elliot Gould's love-child.

_Could be. Mom was a girl who couldn't say "No."_

Watching Spike mess with the Harley is soothing. Half your mind is watching his ass as he shifts the shit in the saddlebags around, wipes down the gauges, and checks the oil. It's a nice one, that ass, even for a deaddie; B was an idiot for turning that down. The rest of you is wandering into far more dangerous territory.

**Different World**

_It wasn't until Child Welfare took you away from her when you were eight and sent you to across Bean Town to live with your second cousin that you learned that not everybody had to drag their mom in off the front stoop of your building every Sunday morning because she'd had too much to drink down at the corner bar and had passed out face down on the steps._

_And that not everybody's mother brought home strange men who, when they'd had enough of her, helped themselves to you while she turned her back._

_No, other people's moms baked cookies and had window boxes full of geraniums and petunias. They washed the dishes every day and knew what a vacuum cleaner was._

_And every Sunday morning all of you got dressed up and attended Mass. Afterwards, the whole bunch of you would go to McDonald's for a Happy Meal or grandma's and eat pot roast after granddad said grace. Then you and your cousin Jeannie, who was a year older than you, would put on play clothes and go out into the back yard and play whiffle ball with her dad who was a cop..._

**Splat**

"Need a lift, pet?" Spike's standing right in front of you, thumbs hooked into his jeans pockets, head tipped to one side. You start a little, having drifted way further into dangerous territory than you like.

"Nah, I'm 'bout ready to pop - need the walk. Here's the address. See ya." The bike's tempting, but you hand Buffy's old squeeze a scrap torn off the corner of the phone bill you got this morning that you'd stashed unopened in your back pocket. Your latest trip to la-la land was unsettling; you don't want company until you can shake it out of your head like so much dust from a doormat.

Spike takes it from you and looks at it before looking at you with one eyebrow cocked as you start to slide off of your perch on the newspaper machine so you can get going. You pause in mid-slide.

_What the?_

_Right, he's new here._

"One block down, turn left, fifth house on the right side of the street. I'm on the third floor, come up the back staircase and leave your bike in the courtyard - I'll leave the gate open, just slam it shut behind you and nobody'll fuck with it." Well, you would have said that only it came out as, "Ohhhhhh Shhhhhiiiiiiiittttt." when your right knee buckles painfully out from under you the moment you put your weight on it.

The graveyard goes "Splat!" all over the pavement as Spike catches you before you hit the concrete yourself.

You cling to him, feeling blood trickle hotly down your shins and into your lug-soled boots. His nostrils flare and you pull away. You can handle yourself should the soul he claims to have fails to put on the brakes and the two of you come to a final dustup, but you hope it doesn't have to come to that because you're not done with him yet.

He blinks, gives his head a slight shake, and then half picks you up and plops you onto the bike, "You aren't walking anywhere luv, not with all that going on down there."

Spike's touch is surprisingly gentle.

**Bride**

"Stay put while I get my stuff." Spike sets you down on the kitchen table like one a sack of groceries in among the dirty dishes after you officially invited him in and he carried you across the threshold before negotiating his way back around the big unopened cardboard boxes with your name on them that Robin's attorney had delivered to your place last week.

Spike's footsteps recede down the stairs and back to the courtyard where he's parked the Harley. He'd lugged you up the back stairs, which was embarrassing even if nobody but the neighbor's pit bull saw him doing it. What was worse, your knees feel so bad that you weren't able to enjoy the ride.

When he got back he found you sitting on the bathroom floor.

**First-aid Striptease**

You were half out of your boots and there was blood soaking into the bathmat from where you'd tried to slide your jeans down past your knees. Your blood had soaked through the stiff new black fabric and dried on the way over - and the whole mess had swelled up.

"I told you to stay put, pet."

"I'm all right." You tug at your jeans again and then sit back gasping. The rest of the fall has finally caught up with you; your own strength had driven you into the pavement; now you feel like one big bruise. The whole thing is fuckin' stupid. You've fallen off roofs, taken hits to the face that would have shattered a normal woman's jaw, and you're whining over a pair of skinned knees?

_Wuss_!

"No," Spike joins you on the floor in the cramped space, "You're not all right." He pulls your hands away from where you jeans are stuck, "Let me see."

In the end, he slams the lid shut and eases you up on the pot, sits on the edge of the big ol' claw foot tub that came with the place and props your legs across his knees.

Again, his touch is gentle for someone who can easily push through a wall if he feels like it. You lean back against the porcelain water tank and try not to look, but your eyes follow Spike's hands, with their long, tapering fingers as they trace the trouble. Finally, "Hope you don't want these trous, I'm going to have to cut you out of them."

Shit, and you'd liked those jeans too. "Scissors, medicine cabinet, bottom shelf." Not that it was a problem replacing them, Robin's money had solved that problem now that you'd gone straight and stopped shoplifting. Still, it hurt watching the blades carefully slice through the fabric, exposing your blood soaked socks and then your shins, and then the mess your knees made.

"You're ground in pretty bad here. Ready?" You nod, eyes watering. You want to cry it stings so bad. But Slayers don't cry right? Neither do big girls, and you're both. Spike puts the scissors on the floor grips the fabric, locks eyes with you and says, "One. Two. Three!"

There's a ripping sensation and your left knee is exposed. You grab Spike's hands as he goes for the right. "Stop."

"Hang on pet, be over soon." His nostrils are flaring again; your blood is on his hands where they grip the split fabric. This is the last place you want to be trapped with a vamp. It's too cramped in here, there's no leverage and your knees can wait...

"Stop, lemme catch... Aw fuck it, finish the job!"

So he rips the second jean's leg open, taking parts of you with it - you give in and yell. Down below, bitchy ol' Mrs. Bugatti with her scratchy ol' opera records bangs on the ceiling with her cane at your noise and you laugh a little, though it ends with a near-sob because your knees feel like you'd poured some of that lighter fluid on them and clicked your Zippo.

You've got your arms around Spike's shoulders and your face buried in his neck and you don't remember how you got there.

He smells of beer, smokes, blood, and motor oil.

If you didn't hurt so much all over, you'd take him right there.

**Peroxide**

After a while, Spike disentangles himself, "Game for second base, pet?"

He's smiling, just a little, and you notice that the smile's also in his blue eyes - something Robin taught you to look for when dealing with other people.

You try to relax, nodding while chewing the insides of your mouth raw. Spike gets up and starts rummaging around in the medicine chest again and comes out with peroxide and gauze.

Spike starts dousing the wounds with peroxide, watching the foam and blood rise as you hiss at the sting. Once the foaming dies down, he starts to delicately blot the slop away with gauze. It still stings, but it's not as bad as before.

"Damn, you're good at this sort of shit! Bet you used to do this a lot for B." you say because the silence that surrounds you both is too loud for your taste.

Spike looks over at you, "Never did." The little smile in his eyes is gone.

_Never_?" You sorta laugh, wanting a cigarette, maybe. "Why not? Way Dawnie put it, you two were all hot and heavy..."

Spike frowns and snarls, "That's not what I was for."

"Oh. Well. _Excuuuuuuuuse me for asking!"_

The silence returns except for the crackling hiss of peroxide.

Then without preamble, Spike tells you without looking up at you as he concentrates on picking denim threads out of your knees how B'd show up at his lair, take what she wanted, and then leave him hanging without so much as a "Thanks." Not that he minded; hell, it's not like he'd sod else to do. Even bad sex is a great way to kill time, right? If he tried to do anything else with B, hell, like be seen in public with her? Or like maybe help make her life a little easier? She'd blow him off - he was just there for one reason and one reason only. Hell, any sex is better than no sex, right? So he'd bided his time, figuring she'd come 'round sooner or later and he'd stop being the 'no-no' tucked into her nightstand drawer, never admitting that she was using him - anyway, bad sex is still good, right?

You yelp as Spike forgets himself and comes down too hard on the broken skin with a gauze pad. He closes his eyes and takes your hands where you'd tried to push him away in one of his and gives them a little squeeze.

Finally, "Sorry pet." He releases you and goes back to cleaning up the mess you've made of yourself.

He continues: so when the one chance, the one chance he had to do for her as he was doing for you, he blew it because he didn't recognize what he was looking at. Oh God, he blew it, and went out and got a soul, thinking that's what she wanted when what she wanted was him out of her life, for good.

You've always kept your guts to yourself, so seeing someone else's spilling out like this is embarrassing, even if it is a vamp. So as he talks, you find your mind wandering back into forbidden territory again...

**Different World, Again**

_Nothing lasts forever; some idiot parole board decided that your mother had learned her lesson and let her out a few years early - so you had to go back._

_You didn't want to._

_You and your cousin Jeannie, who was as blonde as you were dark, hung onto each other and cried - the night before you'd declared each other bestest friends and twin sisters and sealed it with spit under the lilac bush out front, swearing that you'd never forget each other and that you'd write every day or go to Hell if you didn't._

_The first few days with mom weren't so bad. She kept the place (a new one) picked up, and she didn't drink and there were no strange men in and out at all hours. Then Friday night came along she staggered home late from her waitress job stinking drunk and the man she had with her beat her up and then they did the dirty in the bedroom with the door open while you cowered behind the locked door of your own room._

_Next morning your mother hit you so hard it left a hand-shaped bruise on your cheek when you asked her wasn't it time to go to Mass as she sat at the kitchen table moaning and washing aspirin down with Jack Daniels after she threw up in the waste basket by the stove._

_After a while you picked yourself up off the floor, made the two of you eggs the way your favorite cousin's mother had taught you to, poured the juice which was already going a bit funny smelling, and started to make coffee._

_Your mother took one look gagged, ran to the bathroom, slammed the door behind her, and threw up._

_After that you decided eating Kix out of the box every morning was the way to go._

**Gap**

"Pet, you in there?"

"Wha..?"

You knees are bandaged and Spike's trimmed your jeans into Daisy Dukes, "You dropped off on me." He negotiates his way out of the john and around the boxes that decorate your living room with you in his arms, "If I knew I was that exciting, I wouldn't have told you my life's story. But I'm dead, so it doesn't count." Spike adds sarcastically as he lowers you onto the beat up couch that came with the place. He shoves a rattle of weapon catalogs, a broken crossbow, and empty Coke cans off the coffee table and sits down on it across from you, knees on elbows.

His hands are clean.

He catches you staring at them and he looks right back at you, "I didn't jolly pop while you were out, so stop looking at me like that."

"I wasn't... "

Spike interrupts you edgily, "If I had, you wouldn't be laying on your couch giving me the evil eye." He reaches up to the kitchen counter over your head where the couch is shoved up against the divider wall and takes down the jelly jar that you've been using as a water glass. Blood sloshes thickly in the bottom and there are five empty bags littering the counter among six empty Guinness bottles, "Brought my own, remember pet?" The pale tip of his tongue comes out and lightly flicks at the threaded rim before he slams the contents, swallowing loudly.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I'm a monster." He puts the mug back on the counter and takes his lighter and smokes out of his shirt pocket. "Have been for a long time." Spike's tongue slides out and briefly probes the corners of his mouth. It's now dark red.

He lights up, lights another one and hands it to you. The two of you just sit there listening to the rain which has now turned into sleet.

It's 3 am

**Boob Tube Reality**

The two of you sit there watching early morning television. It's crap, but the noise is welcome: the sounds of used car salesmen, ambulance chasers and local restaurants hawking their goods and services means that the world outside your apartment still exists.

It's reassuring - the world outside your apartment still exists.

Robin's dead, but things like used car salesmen, ambulance chasers, and local restaurants still exist.

Robin.

Is.

Dead.

_Damn Spike, why did you have to show up again and remind me?_

_No, no, don't go there. _

You ask Spike how he survived the shit that Angel dragged the L.A. gang into, determined not to go back down any more of your own bad blind alleys. Spike just looks at you, stubs out his cigarette in one of your overflowing ashtrays, gets up and says in a flat voice, "I haven't had a shower in two weeks."

"Knock yourself out." You say as he closes the door behind him.

You turn up the sound on the idiot box, listen for a while, and then turn it off halfway through a rerun of _Green Acres_.

The water goes on in your bathroom, and you hear Spike moving around. You notice that he's left you a can of Coke and a bottle of ibuprophin within easy reach. You take two, washing it down with the Coke.

**Different World, Dead End**

_By the time you were thirteen, you could roll a joint like a pro and had a rap sheet that included shoplifting, vandalism, and assault._

_When you turned fourteen, you slept in doorways when you weren't turning tricks._

_Sometime not long after your fifteenth birthday, you got picked up when you solicited a plainclothes cop who immediately arrested you._

_Worse, he was the father of your favorite cousin - who never stopped writing to you though you'd stopped responding to them when you were eleven. Somehow her little gifts and notes always found you no matter where you were._

_He didn't recognize you until after you'd been cleaned up and then begged off the case as a conflict of interest - still, he was decent enough to ask for a private conference with you to let you know what was going on._

_You sat across the table from him in one of the interrogation rooms. He just stared at you, eyes glistening. It was stupid, this burly Irish cop crying but making like he wasn't. You didn't know what to say, you just remembered some big easygoing guy with a belly that sorta hung over his belt when he would throw the ball to you or to Jeannie real easy until you'd both got the hang of it. When you started hitting them out over the hedge and into the alley, he'd yell, "Swing mighty Casey, swing!" Then all three of you would yell and dance around like you'd seen a real home run at the ballpark two blocks away until it was time to send another one over the fence._

The water stops and you hear an electric shaver fire up. You pull your winter coat over your bare feet and look up at the ceiling and the old water stains on it, your mind still unreeling like a half chewed home video in a broken VCR.)

_Finally Jeannie's dad got up and said, "I'm so sorry Faith, I am so, so sorry. We had no idea- the wife and I wanted to adopt you but when your mother looked like she'd finally straightened up, we felt it was wrong to take you away from her, so we never filed the papers." He paused, sniffed a little and said, "Just do everything they tell you and it'll be all right." Then he closed the door behind him._

_You never saw him again._

_A few days later in Juvenile's cafeteria, you effortlessly snapped the wrist of another girl that you were squabbling with over the last ice cream bar. You'd woke up feeling funny that morning, like something had filled you that was too big and was moving around trying to make itself fit and that's how it made room for itself, crack!_

_That day your first Watcher showed up. She was a total stranger but she had full custody of you. All charges had been dropped, and she had papers with your mother's signature on them._

_You never saw your mother again; small loss there - you hadn't seen her since she drove you to the abortion clinic in a stolen car when you were twelve._

**Just Some Guy**

Spike steps out of the bathroom turning out the light behind him. His beard's gone, making him look about seventeen, and his now two-tone hair is tousled and ringletted. You never would have guessed that he was naturally curly, you've never seen it un-gelled.

"Hey." You say cautiously as he pauses in the doorway, toiletry kit loosely dangling from one hand. He sort of smiles at you; this time the smile reaches his eyes.

"Hey." Spike tosses it back at you; you relax.

He drops the bag off to one side and starts running a towel over his hair; he's dressed in clean jeans and a black t-shirt, the contrast of black fabric against his translucent skin makes the fading wipe-out bruises hard to overlook, "Thanks," he says quietly before he lifts your bare feet, sits down on the couch beside you and arranges them across his lap after tossing the damp towel in the general direction of your laundry heap.

_Funny, if you didn't know what he really is, Spike's just some guy._

Without preamble Spike tells you that he woke up with a dislocated shoulder under a pile of dead demons in an L.A. alley after he'd done the stupid and went along with Angel's plan to kill off the Circle of the Black Thorn and postpone the inevitable.

_Shit man! Word on the street is, the Circle was just a bunch of assholes with too much money who liked to meet in basements, do evil shit and laugh about it over Mai Tais at power lunches the next day - they were pissants! There was a new kid on the block that wanted W&H to take notice so they set Angel up - Angel was a patsy for both sides! Stupid, stupid, stupid, and B didn't do a damn thing to help him!_

But you say nothing; you just listen, focusing on Spike as he tells his story to the blank television, absently rubbing the bottoms of your feet, like Robin used to do when the medications and the cancer would let him.

He'd hid under a dumpster for the day. After sundown, he'd looked for the others. Gunn was dead, somebody he called "Blue" had been ripped in half, Connor's head was bashed in, and Angel was nowhere to be seen. So he'd gone back to the W&H motor pool, nicked a car, and got the Hell out of L.A. after swapping it for a Harley like he should have in the first place as soon as he'd been reincorporated.

"Fred? Wes?"

Spike just stares fixedly at the blank television screen, swallowing heavily and says nothing so you don't push it.

You start to yawn, but stop when he says in a very quiet voice, "Should have turned my back on the whole bollicky lot of them first chance I got; Peaches, the Scoobies, all of them."

Can't say as you blame him. Holy shit, you'd run to Sunnydale and a rumor of a safe haven after you'd taken on a target bigger than yourself that got a really nice lady who'd done her best to salvage you killed. Instead of a safe haven, you created a fresh shitstorm that showed the world and yourself what a mess you were, Slayer powers or not.

_Came in all ready to kick ass... _

(Just like Kennedy a few months ago. You had to put her in her place by...)

_And take names..._

Instead you fucked up royally, taking the wrong side because it promised you an identity of your own (that's Robin talk), and nearly got a lot of people whom you'd once desperately wanted to be your friends killed (more Robin talk).

So all you say to Spike is as you punch his arm, "No shit, Sherlock!" while remembering how good it had been at first: B's mom was really nice, she wanted you to move in with them, and though the others were a little afraid of you, you could feel them thawing out just a little - and G-man, G-man was _great_, like the dad you wished you'd had...

Spike's thumb slides up hard beneath the arch of your left foot and you stifle a moan that's half pleasure and half pain, "Sorry." he says and quits.

_Damn_.

Sleet rattles against your windows.

Looking at the dark television Spike continues; he should have never come to Sunnydale. Sunnydale showed him what he was worth, Sunnydale showed him what he could have been, and then threw it back in his face every chance it got. Giles was the closest thing he'd ever had to a father, Joyce was the first real friend he'd ever had, Dawn was a pain in the ass but... then there was Buffy.

_Yeah, Buffy, the oldest of us all; the one I'll always be compared to._

For you B was the cousin you'd left behind who never stopped writing to you even though you could never find the time to respond. You really wanted B to like you, but not too much, you didn't want to look...

_Desperate_.

You wanted what B had. Nice house, great mom, bratty kid sister... The window of your coma dreams always had the four of you living in that big old place, with your own room, you'd go out on patrol together and Joyce who knew what the two of you were would see to it that there was always a hot meal waiting for you when you got back, Dawn would whine when you'd tell her to stay home and do her homework, and everything would be all right.

_Huh?_

Spike's telling you how Joyce would let him come in after Buffy'd go on patrol, let him use the washer, maybe take a shower, watch telly with her, how bad it was when she died and he wasn't even allowed to attend the funeral...

_Shit, was he wanting the same things I was?_

Buffy coming to him after she rose a second time had been great. He thought it meant that all doors were finally open - he was _in_. But he was dead wrong - hey the sex was great, fantastic, but the aftermath always left him feeling used - something he wasn't expecting. If you don't have a soul, you aren't supposed to care as long as you have a good time?

"Right?" He looks at you and then away.

She kept him hidden away like a dirty secret, which, well, he was by his own admission.

So he'd gone out and got his soul back after he tried to do the unthinkable - it had been a a bust. Instead of being allowed into the circle as complete, all he got... Bloody hell! All he got for his troubles was crazy and jerked around by the First. Instead of forgiveness, Buffy still hated him; worse, she pitied him, "Poor dumb _demon_, no better than an _animal_, goes out and gets a pretty _toy_ called a _soul_ but it didn't make him any _cleaner_." He slicks his damp hair back with his fingers, "That last night with her was a mercy fuck is all, a bloody mercy fuck because she knew what would happen to me the next day and wanted to ease her conscience by granting a condemned man his last wish."

"If it makes you feel any better, after the Hellmouth collapsed, B ditched all her friends and took up with that Immortal dude."

"Yeah, the _Immortal_." Spike throws back his head and laughs for a long time. His teeth are clenched. Finally he says, "Well, maybe he's got a thicker hide than mine - I wish him the joy of her."

_I just hope he keeps his hands off of Dawnie; should have brought her with me to Boston after Robin died, creep!_

"So what about Robin?" the change in subject takes you by surprise so you just sit there, feet on a vampire's lap in front of a turned off boob tube on a couch with prolapsed stuffing, "You two break up or what?"

**Robin**

"He's dead."

Spike blinks, almost smiles, and catches himself, "What happened, Hellmouth?"

"Cancer of the lymph nodes."

"Rough way to go, pet." He starts rubbing your feet again; his fingers cool against the soles of your feet. "Rough way to go."

"He lived six months longer than they said he would after he refused treatment. He said he was so far along it was a waste of money. I took care of him."

_By the time he died, Robin weighed about 100 pounds and his beautiful chocolate skin had turned ashen grey. You woke up one morning and he was dead beside you. Simple as that._

_It wasn't the same as when you heard your mother'd got herself beaten to death by one of her asshole boyfriends. You felt nothing, but when Robin died, you felt like everything you'd based your life on in the last year or so had been yanked out from under you and you were in freefall, unable to cry at his funeral in Rome while Dawnie stood there and bawled her eyes out and Buffy leaned against her Immortal squeeze wearing an original Versace and a blank expression on her face._

You still can't cry about it - God knows you've tried hard enough; still nothing comes, there's just this ol' empty void where one more person you'd tried to count on crapped out on you, your mother, your cousin's dad, all of your Watchers, B, and now beautiful Robin with his smart brain, way smarter than you'd ever be, who'd been patient with you when you did stupid things, and who'd helped you to study for your GED so he'd have something to do while waiting to die.

_He told me I was smarter than I thought and if he couldn't be with me, he'd have to teach me how to think because he didn't think I'd ever get a Watcher who lived up to my standards._

And now you sit numb, knees throbbing a little less bad on the third floor of a building in a neighborhood that you now own because you and Kennedy had words when she and Willow dropped in three months back, you'd had enough of Kennedy and her rich bitch mouth bragging about how great Rio had been and why are you in such a shitty place in Beantown moping over a dead _man_ when you could be living la Vida Loca like her and Willow - who was smiling and nodding like a bobble head doll the whole time, pregnant belly poking out like she'd shoplifted a basketball.

_You'd grabbed Kennedy by the collar of her shirt and slammed her up against the wall so hard that she left a Kennedy sized dent in the plaster and then tossed the little cunt out into the hall, which made another dent in the plaster. Willow lost her glazed smile, her eyes went black, everything gave off sparks around the two of you so you told Willow to get the hell out - pregnant or powerful, you'd beat the crap out of her if she didn't. Buffy's old friend's eyes went green and crying, she'd hastily beat a retreat, dragging a woozy Kennedy with her down three flights of narrow, tenement stairs, nearly knocking down old Mrs. Bugatti as they passed her on the steps - great move there, Faith!_

Kennedy had screamed up at you from the sidewalk that she'd see to it that her daddy and all his money would make your life miserable for threatening her sweet Willow, just you wait, you won't be able to get a place to live on the entire East Coast! Willow pushed Kennedy into a cab and for the first time you called a number on a business card that Robin'd given you the week before he died - it was his attorney. Legalbeagle said he'd deal with it. Next day he showed up all Brooks Brothers and briefcase and had you sign a couple of pieces of paper. Which means that you now own an entire neighborhood - the area's up for upscale renewal and the property values are gonna go sky high - it's a good investment, whatever that means.

_Who cares, all I know is that I have my own place to crash now. But that doesn't bring Robin back._

It is now five am and you're finally crying over Robin.

**Vortex**

You just sit there on the couch, hands at your sides, dissolving and Spike's staring at you openmouthed like you've turned green.

_Robin's gone!_

The walls have disappeared.

_Robin's gone!_

The ceiling's flown away like a big waterstained bat.

_Robin's gone!_

What control you had left went with the ceiling, water stains and all.

Spike's got hold of you now, and he's crying too, for his own reasons.

And the whole thing hurts like hell but feels better than sex.

**"Hey", Again**

It"s New Year's Day and Mrs. Bug (She insists you call her that!) has just called to let you know that she'll be hitching her way upstairs from the second floor to bring you leftovers and fresh canollis (Everything to do with Mrs. Bug involves fresh canollis.) so the two of you can watch the big football game on the boob tube while you finish unpacking all those big boxes with your name on them that Robin's attorney had delivered to you.

In them are more books than you've ever seen in your life outside of a public library.

There are big books, little books, and books that are nothing but pictures with bizarro writing under them, and even more bizarro books that are nothing but a long piece of paper rolled up between two broomsticks.

Then there's books that tell you how to read the books that you can't read.

Spike's in some of them, or some guy who calls himself "William the Bloody" who kindasorta looks like him, with Drusilla. Angel or Angelus is there too, as are a lot of other familiar faces.

There are also books of poetry.

Wow. You, of all people, now own books of poetry, and novels and ones with big pictures of cathedrals and Roman ruins in them - a note tucked into one full of statues of naked men said, "Thought you'd enjoy this, there's lots of pictures in case you decide you don't feel like reading the words."

_Hah, look at the pictures? Look at the pictures? Hey, Robin-man no need to diss me. I'm a hot chick who's taking online Community College courses and getting B's. Why the fuck should I just look at the fuckin' pictures when I can read the words and maybe learn something from 'em?_

The note goes on to remind you that your old lover figured you'd never be able to find a Watcher that was good enough for you, so you'd have to be your own Watcher - just like he'd said about you learning how to really think. His guardian left him his Watcher's books when he died - they're as good a place to start as any. Hope wherever you wash up you've got room because Mr. Crowley was an even bigger book junkie than Giles.

You put down the book that you were starting to put on one of the new shelves that the contractor your attorney sent over to fix up your squat put up yesterday to let Mrs. Bug in.

She gives you a peck on the cheek, and with a delighted expression exclaims over the books, so many, _many_ beautiful books! Has Boston Public Library set up an annex, no? Then she tells you that you need to get that mess cleared away because your cousin Jeannie and her husband Mike (He's all right for a _fireman_.) will be bringing the baby over after the game and that child gets into _everything_! You take the big stack of warm plates away from her and set them out on the table, which Mrs. Bug came up and cleaned off for you last night when you were out patrolling the neighborhood like she always does when she thinks you're not looking. She also did the dishes, which you wish she wouldn't do because you aren't exactly helpless, you know.

Bug's cool; she waits up for you nights and always has a hot breakfast waiting for you which you'd better eat or you'll get thin and what man wants a thin woman with nothing to hang on to? She thinks you're some sort of undercover plainclothes cop, like her husband Roberto was for 30 years, God rest his soul.

She's also brought up your mail - which keeps getting put in her mailbox by mistake.

_Junk._

_Junk._

_Junk._

_Cool, a postcard! Wonder who it's from?_

There's no return address, but it's got a New York postmark and a picture of Rockefeller Center at night with all kinds of people skating on the ice on the front. There's only one other word written on it the back.

"Hey."

And that's just a little bit of five by five.


End file.
